Several Senate Republicans are angry at anti-tax activist Grover Norquists position on a major ethanol vote, creating a rift between one of Washingtons most influential conservatives and a Republican Party that has marched largely in lock step with his campaign tax pledges over the years.

It sounds like a bunch of nonsense on both sides. Grover Norquist is not a reliable conservative, and neither are those senate RINOs who voted to keep the ethanol subsidies in place.

Removing ethanol subsidies is NOT a tax increase. If you take the damned ethanol out of gasoline, it will save everyone money. I have to take my weedwhackers and chain saws in to get fixed just about every year, or the damned things won’t start. Ethanol rots out their insides. And the same with my outboard motor.

but, in the entire (Pop Deming) process,
it takes MORE than a gallon of gas, to make a gallon of ethanol, which produces less btu’s than the original gallon of gas.
so, NET,
it INCREASES our foreign dependence,
and INCREASES the price of oil.

...and costs taxpayers over 6 billion a year, on top!

8
posted on 06/15/2011 9:44:51 AM PDT
by Elendur
(the hope and change i need: Sarah / Colonel West in 2012)

Congress has provided the motor fuel industry with a tax incentive for blending ethanol with gasoline in the form of 45 cents per gallon of ethanol tax credit known as the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit.

I don’t view the termination of a selective subsidy to be a tax increase. Maybe for those affected, it is. But not to the taxpaying public at large. To me it’s just a return to the normal status quo where they are now being taxed just the same as everyone else.

17
posted on 06/15/2011 11:02:49 AM PDT
by henkster
(Every member of Congress must put the fate of the nation over their next re-election campaign)

For me personally, no I wouldn’t view it the same way. But that’s the whole problem with our tax code; it’s really nothing but a fight by special interests for preferential treatment. Your tax cuts should be eliminated but I’ll fight if you want to cut mine. It’s the flip side of the same coin when you talk about the spending portion of public finance. Whether the subsidy exists as the government not taking money in the form of revenue or handing out money in the form of some kind of “entitlement” is only a difference of nuance, not of substance.

In the end, fiscal decisions, both public and private, are not made on the basis of economic efficiency but rather on political connection and clout. And we wind up with a crazy distorted economy that is chasing away jobs and stifling productive innovative activity.

We need a streamlined tax code for everyone, a revenue generating system that is uniform and predictable, and designed only to obtain as much revenue as necessary to fulfill the core functions of government. Arguing over this deduction and that credit is an argument over re-arrangement of deck chairs.

19
posted on 06/15/2011 12:16:56 PM PDT
by henkster
(Every member of Congress must put the fate of the nation over their next re-election campaign)

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